Leading with WAN Optimization

For the longest time wide area network (WAN) optimization has been widely seen as an adjunct to another technology. The one time you could really sell it was an IT organization bought routers and switches or there was a distributed storage system being installed.

But now three trends are making WAN optimization a primary rather than secondary opportunity for solution providers in the channel:

Cloud computing:  IT organizations are increasingly becoming concerned about network bandwidth fees associated with cloud computing. WAN optimization is being seen increasingly as a requirement to reduce these costs.

Disaster Recovery: With the increased number of natural disasters of late, replicating data to remote backup sites has moved up the IT agenda.

Globalization: More companies than ever are doing business on a global scale, which means they need control costs by maximizing limited amounts of network bandwidth.

As a result, Certeon senior vice president Karl Soderlund says solution providers in channel should be leveraging WAN optimization to have more strategic conversations with customers about the general stage of their business.

However, increased demand is almost always accompanied by increased competition, so one of the newer players in the WAN optimization space is making a profitability commitment to the channel. Certeon today announced that as part of a new channel program it would guarantee a 20 percent margin to it partners.

Soderlund says that as part of a bid to unseat Riverbed Technology, Blue Coat Systems and Cisco, Certeon is taking a long-term view of the market, which means the company figures it can make up for the margins by selling additional services to customers down the road.

There is no doubt that the WAN optimization sector is now not only one of the hottest sectors in all of IT, it’s also one of the fiercest. The good news for solution providers is that the vendors in this segment appear willing to go to great lengths to ensure the success of their channel partners.